


Where He Doesn't Belong

by pinkrose787



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Disney Kingdoms (Comics), Journey Into Imagination (Ride)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But can it be called an AU if canon doesn't really exist, Gen, Mystery, Technically an AU, much like that popular 80s movie this story is neverending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22411753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkrose787/pseuds/pinkrose787
Summary: Everything had been going great at the Imagination Institute lately, but Figment just can't shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. The Day's End

The sun had gone down on a highly eventful day. The Imagination Institute had become covered in shadows. The Dream Lab was completely silent not a snore to be heard. The laughing lab had laughed its last laugh for the night. And, the Sound Lab made no sound. Most of the lights had been turned off. Now the Institute had an eerie darkness to it. Almost everyone had already gone home. The only two people left in the Institute were the Chairman of the Institute Dr. Nigel Channing, and a small purple dragon named Figment. “I think today’s Open House was the most successful one that we’ve had yet!” Dr. Channing exclaimed

“People sure seemed to like it.” Figment said. “They liked it a lot more than last month’s anyways”

Dr. Channing put his hand on his face. “Oh, don’t remind me about that. That one was a complete disaster. I am frankly surprised that anyone turned up for this one at all after that mess.”

Figment patted Dr. Channing on the back “It wasn’t that bad, Doc. You did do a pretty good job on this one. Maybe next month’s open house will be even better!” He exclaimed.

“Perhaps, but I’m not sure we could improve on this one.” Dr. Channing said.

“Of course, we can. There isn’t anything in this world that can’t be improved.” Figment said.

“I guess you’re right.” Dr. Channing said “But, I think that you coming along improved this open house immensely.”

“You really think so?” Figment said.

“Of course. You should have seen the guests last time. They were completely bored on the last one. I think I some of them actually fell asleep. But with you there was not a single dull moment.” Dr. Channing said.

“Aw, thanks Doc.” Figment said. “Helping you out with the Open House today was very fun.”

“I’m glad that you had fun. You really helped me out today. I forgot what I was at the core of what I had been studying for the past 20 years.” Dr. Channing said

“20 years that’s a long time. But, then again I’ve only been alive for five months.” Figment said

A perplexed look crossed Dr. Channing’s face. “Didn’t only come to life two months ago?”

Figment put his hand on his chin. “Yeah, you’re right.” He shrugged “I don’t know why I said five months,”

“Well, we all get things wrong sometimes. It is no big deal.” Dr. Channing said.

“Yeah, it was just a silly mistake,” Figment said.

Dr. Channing looked at the clock. “Well, look at the time it’s almost ten. I have stayed here much too long. I must get going.” He gathered up his things and started walking towards the door. Before he exited the door, he turned to Figment. “Goodnight Figment. See you tomorrow.” He waved

Figment waved back. “Yeah see you tomorrow Doc.” He said. 

Figment stood in the room alone. The fact that he got his own age wrong was bothering him. “It’s no big deal” He said to himself. “I was only a couple of months off. It’s not that bad.” But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a truth to the statement that he was five months old, even if he could only remember two of them.

He floated around the Institute going from corridor to corridor deep in thought. Him getting his own age wrong was just the tip of the iceberg. Things had just felt off for the entire time he has been here. There was something wrong, but he just couldn’t place his finger on it. He was the only person left in the building. So, there was no one to interrupt his thoughts, but there also wasn’t anyone that he could turn too or tell that there was something wrong. After all, who would believe him. Everyone thought of him as the silly little dragon that loves to play games. Most people probably thought that he didn’t have the ability to be serious. He was deep in his thoughts and he was flying around fast. The world seemed meaningless to him compared to the thoughts in his head. All he really wanted was sign that he wasn’t crazy for feeling the way he does. He wished for some kind of sign or message that would help him figure this all out. That’s when it hit him.

Or… more precisely he hit it. He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he wasn’t paying attention to where he had been going. He’d flown face first into a door. There was a loud thud when hit the door. He was knocked back by the impact. His head hurt a bit. He rubbed his head. He looked at the door that he just hit. There was text on the windows. It read “ Dean Finder”

“Dean Finder” Figment said. “Dean Finder… Why does that name sound so familiar?”

He stared at the door. It stood there silently. He figured that it was no good just looking at the door. The door wouldn’t start talking and give him all the answers he needed. He pressed his face against the frosted glass window to see if he could see anything, but he couldn’t. The room was too dark, and the glass was too opaque. He needed to open the door to see what was inside. He tried to open it. It was locked. He pulled on it with all his might. The door didn’t budge. “Maybe, I need to push the door.” He said to himself. He pushed on the door and used all the force that he could muster. But, once again the door remained in the exact same position that it had before.

Figment was now determined to get into this room by any means necessary. He went over to lab after lab looking for anything that he could use to get the door open. He eventually found what he needed in a supply closet. He grabbed a toolbox and dragged it towards the door. He reached into the box and pulled out a screwdriver. He put it in the lock and started to shimmy it around. It did nothing. “I feel like something is missing.” He said to himself. He dug around the toolbox. He pulled out a little metal tool. It looked like a distorted f. Figment didn’t know the name of the tool, but he knew that it was used to pick locks. He picked it and put it in the lock along with the screwdriver. He fiddled around with the lock moving the tension wrench up and down while trying to rotate the screwdriver.

He worked on the lock for about ten minutes, but still the lock wouldn’t budge. “Well, this isn’t working.” He said. “Maybe I need to try something different” He pulled a hammer out of the toolbox. He held it in his hands and looked at it. “This should work” He said. He raised the hammer and slammed it on the doorknob. Nothing happened 

He hit the doorknob with the hammer for a few minutes before giving up. He didn’t know why he was so determined to get in, it was most likely a boring office, but he knew that he had to get in. He threw the hammer onto the floor “This is indestructible!” He shouted. He crossed his arms and looked down and thought for a second. He looked at the window of the door. “But maybe if I just hit something else.” He picked up the hammer. He lifted it up. He slammed it on the window. The window stood firm. There wasn’t a single crack to be seen.

“Are all doors impossible to destroy?” He asked. He gripped his hammer and flew over to the door across the hall. He looked at it. The letters on the window were completely faded. He lifted his hammer up high. He smashed it on the window. The window shattered. Bits and pieces of it crumbled to ground. Fragments of the window were on the floor

“Ooooooh boy. Doc is going to be so mad when he finds out what I just did.” Figment said.

Figment grabbed a broom and quickly tried to clean up the glass that had fallen. He managed to get most of the pieces off of the floor. It was hard to tell that there was ever shattered glass on the ground. He thinks he did a good job, but in the darkness of the hallway it was hard to tell. Figment looked at where the window used to be. It showed a dark laboratory. Not the office that Figment had been expecting, There were shapes of various mechanical devices laid about on tables. These shapes weren’t just formed from the darkness, but with the sheets that covered them.

Figment flew through the hole in the door. He just had to look inside to see what was in here. The room was even darker than it looked from outside the door. He felt around the door searching for a light switch. He felt a small bump under his hand. He pushed the switch upward. The room was awash in fluorescent lights. The lights flickered a bit and it was dim with some corners of the room being obscured by darkness, but there was enough light to see.

Figment looked around the room. It was like any other laboratory in the Institute. The main difference was that everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and the lights hadn’t had any maintenance for years. Figment went around the room looking at everything. It was all rather plain looking. Figment was rather bored of this room. He turned around to leave. As he turned something caught his eye. Something that he hadn’t noticed before. There was some giant machine sitting in a dark corner of the room. Like everything else in the room, it was covered with a tarp and had a mountain of dust on it.

Figment grabbed the sheet and pulled it off. Dust flew into the air. Figment began coughing. When the dust cleared, and Figment could breathe again he saw what the machine was. It was something that looked like it had sprung straight from a steampunk novel. It was a large metallic sphere. There were openings with switches and dials. There were golden gears on the side. Pipes protruded from the machine. Figment gently touched the surface of it. He didn’t know the names of many machines in the Institute, but this one seemed so familiar. “Mesmonic Converter.” He said to himself. He was sure that he had never seen that machine in his life, and yet he knew what it was called. He couldn’t remember what it was for, but he knew that for whatever reason it was incredibly important.

He looked around the machine. He found a little panel on the side of it. He opened it. Inside of the panel were switches and levers. Figment began to fiddle them. Nothing happened. “I think there’s something missing.” Figment said. “Maybe I just need to plug it in to something.”

He flew around the machine a few times to see if there were any cords for it. There weren’t. He wanted to get the machine running. If he did than maybe everything that didn’t make sense, would start to make sense.

He flew back out to the hallway. He went over to the other door. He took one more look at the opaque glass and its black lettering. The name Dean Finder just sat there. It still lacked any actual meaning, but still it’s the thought that somehow it was important wouldn’t leave Figment’s mind. He tore his eyes away from the sign. He picked up the toolbox. He strained to pick it up. The weight of the tools weighed him down. He managed to get a few feet into the air. His flight towards the lab was slow, but he managed to make it. He tried to fly through the hole in the window, but the toolbox was too large to go through. He put it down, and flew through the window, and opened up the door. He pulled the toolbox into the lab, and towards the machine.

He landed and took out a socket wrench. He looked up at the machine. It loomed over him like the feeling that everything was wrong had been for the past couple months. He gripped the wrench tighter. He flew up to the top of the machine and started take out some of the bolts. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to do, but he just felt that if he messed around with this machine than eventually, he would figure it out and it would work. And when it would work everything would be okay.

He tinkered with the machine for hours on end. But, in the end he got no closer to making the machine work. He flew around it a few times, hoping that maybe he would catch something that he had missed. But he had no such luck. The machine sat there still broken. The room was just silent. Figment stared at the Mesmonic Converter. He felt as though the machine was mocking him. That it knew that it held the answers that Figment so desperately needed, but it was just keeping them to itself.

He didn’t know the time, but he felt that the Imagination Institute would be opening soon. The scientists would be coming in, and so would Dr. Channing. Figment couldn’t let anyone know what he had been working on for the night. He turned off the lights and flew out of the room. He looked at the door. The giant hole in the window would raise too many questions. Figment went out and got some paper and covered it up like they do when a room is under construction.

He looked at his work. Hopefully no one would notice anything was off. He took one look at the other door. It still read “Dean Finder”. That hadn’t changed. Figment was still going to figure this mystery out, no matter what it took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be posted on February 8th 2020. See y'all then  
> February 4th, 2020: Chapter 2 has been pushed back to February 22nd. This might seem like a while, but this time will really let me focus on improving Chapter 2. I've also begun the process of writing Chapter 3, which should be published March 7th, 2020.  
> Note: I might change the dates, because college can get very busy very quickly. I'll update the chapter notes if that does occur though.


	2. The Endless Search

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figment and Doc Channing search for the mysterious Dean Finder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this chapter was a day late! I got sick, and wasn't able to finish editing it in time.

The sun had risen above the Imagination Institute. It’s light glistened off of the glass pyramids in a lovely display of light. Inside the hallways were now awash in lights. Scientists had come in and started their experiments from the day. Figment sat on a bench in the main lobby of the Institute. He was waiting for Dr. Channing to come in. He really wanted to talk to him. As he waited the people that were coming in greeted him, and Figment greeted them back with his usual Figment enthusiasm. Over the past couple of months Figment had become the unofficial mascot of the Imagination Institute. All of the scientists had really warmed up to him, and the guests who visited the Imagination Institute loved him.

Figment sat in the lobby greeting people as they came in for what felt like hours. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was only 9:30 am. Dr. Channing typically arrived by then. Yet, he hadn’t. Each time a person passed Figment his anxiety went up a little bit. He was worried that something had happened to Dr. Channing. A thousand possibilities raced through his mind. He could have gotten into a fight with a lion, he could have ended up in an alternate dimension where everyone is evil or maybe he could have been kidnapped by an evil wizard.

He was sitting there thinking about all the horrible stuff that could have happened. when he was distracted by a cheery voice “Good morning, Figment” It said.

Figment looked up. It was Dr. Channing! “Hey Doc!” He said. “Where have you been?”

“Just got caught up in traffic this morning” Dr. Channing said.

Figment flew off the chair. “I’ve been waiting for you all morning” He said. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Really what is it?” Dr. Channing asked.

“Do you know someone called Dean Finder” Figment asked.

“Hmmm… Dean Finder…” He placed his hand on his chin. “That name sounds familiar, but nothing is really particular is coming up. Why do you ask?”

“I was wandering around last night, and I accidentally ran into his door. I’ve never met him, so I was thought maybe you knew him.” Figment said

“I do not. Also, he has a door?” Dr. Channing asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“A door ya know. Like an office. You’ve got one, Dr. Szalinski has one, and even Dr. Brainard has one” Figment said.

“Hmm… Well, that’s a bit odd. You have to be quite important to the Institute to have an office.” Dr. Channing said. “Can you show me where it is?”

“Yeah.” Figment said. “Follow me.”

Dr. Channing followed Figment as he flew through the hallways. They passed door after door, laboratory after laboratory, and hallway after hallway. The Imagination Institute seemed so large when searching for a single door. “Figment?” Dr. Channing asked.

“Yeah, Doc?” Figment replied.

“Do you have any idea where you are going?” Dr. Channing asked

“Of course, I do. I was just going the long way.” Figment said. “I was hoping that maybe walking around would jog your memory and you would remember who Dean Finder was.”

“Well, it’s not working.” Dr. Channing said. “Please just take me to the door.”

“Okie dokie.” Figment said.

They continued their winding search of the Institute and in a few minutes they were there. The hallway was poorly lit. The sounds of the rest of the Institute were silenced. It had an emptiness to it. “Is this where it is?” Dr. Channing asked.

“Yeah,” Figment said.

“This is a bit strange. This section of the Imagination Institute has been abandoned for quite some time. I’ve been meaning to make some changes to this section, but for something always comes up.”

Dr. Channing looked at the hallway. There were only two doors here. The door that read Dean Finder and another one with paper over its window, He walked up to the Dean Finder door. “This is the door you were talking about I presume.” Dr. Channing said.

Figment nodded.

“Well, this door certainly does… exist” Dr. Channing said. “Do you know what might be behind it?”

“No, I thought you knew.”

“Well, I unfortunately do not.” Dr. Channing examined the door. He looked at the handle. It sat there reflecting the light of the lights above it. He put his hand on the doorknob. It felt like ice.

“The door’s locked.” Figment said.

“How on Earth do you know?”

“Tried to open it last night.” Figment said. “I really wanted to find out who it was. Do you have a key?”

“I do not, and even if I did none of the keys are labeled, so we have to try every single key in the Institute” Dr. Channing said

“So, you can’t get in?” Figment said

“I can’t” Dr. Channing said.

“Well, do you at least know who he is know?” Figment asked.

“I don’t, but I could check the records to see if there was anyone who worked here under that name.” Dr. Channing said.

“Really? That’s great!” Figment said. 

“There is one thing I must know.” Dr. Channing said.

“What’s that?” Figment asked.

“I want to know why you’re so interested in this.” Dr. Channing said.

“Well… you see Doc. I have met everyone, but this is someone I haven’t met, or at least I think I haven’t. I’m not sure.”

“How are you not sure that you’ve meet someone?” Dr. Channing asked.

“I don’t know.” Figment said. “It’s just that every single time I look at that name I feel like I know him, you know?”

“I do know. So, do you still want to check the records?” He asked.

“Yeah, I still want to know who he is.” Figment said.

“Well, then. We can check the records in my office. Every single record in the Institute is on there.” Dr. Channing said.

They began to walk towards his office. While the hallways were lit up the eeriness followed them around. The noises seemed quieter, but they also seemed louder. The hallways seemed more cluttered than normal. There were papers scattered across the floor. Various instruments and carts were left haphazardly in the hallway. “I’ll have to make a memo about keeping the hallways clean” Dr. Channing said to himself.

They eventually reached Dr. Channing’s office. The door had a long list of his titles below his name. Dr. Channing took out his keys. They jingled as he unlocked the door. Inside the office was impeccably clean. Everything had its place. The wall was decorated with diplomas. Books were arranged in a pleasing display of color. Figment went over to the bookshelf. “Wow, Doc. This is really pretty, but how do you find anything?” He asked.

“Simple.” Dr. Channing said. “I don’t. I’ve read each one of these books, and each time I finish one I put it away.

“But, don’t you ever want to re-read them?” Figment asked

“Not particularly.” Dr. Channing said. “And even if I did want to re-read them, I simply don’t have the time. I’ve been so busy lately.”

“Can I read some them?” Figment asked

“Sure, but later we still need to figure out who this Dean Finder is” Dr. Channing said.

“Oh, right” Figment said.

Dr. Channing sat at his computer. He booted it up. The monitor lit up and displayed a loading screen. It loaded, and it loaded, and it loaded. “It sure is taking a long time to boot up.” Figment said.

Dr. Channing let out an annoyed sigh. “It sometimes takes a while; we just have to wait.”

They sat and watched the symbol on the screen spin and spin. Eventually, something else came on the screen. It was a prompt for a password. “Cover your eyes. I don’t want you knowing the password.” Dr. Channing said.

“Okie dokie” Figment said. He put his hands over his eyes. He heard the rapid clacking of keys being pressed followed by a final slightly louder click.

“It’s done you can look now” Dr. Channing said.

Figment took his hands off his eyes. He looked at the computer screen. The desktop icons were displayed in alphabetical order. His desktop was just an image of a grassy hill. He clicked on one of the icons, and a window popped up filled to the brim with text and numbers. They were organized into neat lines. Dr. Channing opened up a search box and typed in “Dean Finder”. The numbers and letters were all whisked away. What was left in the box was nothing. Only three words were on the screen. “No match found.”

“No match found?!” Dr. Channing exclaimed. “How can there be no match found?”

“Maybe he’s not in the system.” Figment suggested.

“Perhaps, which would mean that we would have to check the physical records” Dr. Channing said.

“Okay, so where’s that?” Figment asked.

“Hmmm…” Dr. Channing pressed his hand on his chin. “Well, it has been quite some time since anyone has used physical records, but if I recall correctly, they should be by the Sight Lab.”

“Ok then, let’s go!” Figment said.

They headed off towards the records room. The hallways had become even more eerie since when they last walked through them almost ten minutes ago. Shadows seemed to creep into the light. The hallway was covered with fallen papers and scattered equipment. Dr. Channing sighed “How has it gotten even worse, since we last walked through here.” He said.

“Maybe, they don’t know where trash cans are?” Figment said.

“Oh, they know where the trash cans are, it’s just that they are much too lazy to use them and see the Institute as one big trash can” Dr. Channing said.

They end up at a door. It reads Records on the window. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled out his set of keys and looked around for the key to the records room. The hallway is filled with jingling. He just picks a key and tries to insert it. It doesn’t work. He goes to the next key and tries it all over again. He does this for all the keys that he has. “Hmmm… It must not be here.” He stood and thought for a second. “We really don’t have a way to enter.”

“Don’t be down Doc. We can enter another way.” Figment said.

“Like what?”

“Well, for one I could crawl into the vents and unlock the door from the inside, we could break the window and unlock the door through there, or I could pick the lock.” Figment said.

“You can pick locks?” Dr. Channing said.

“Yeah, can’t you?” Figment asked.

“No, why on Earth would I need to know how to pick a lock?”

“Well, you could not have the key for the records room when you need to get into there.” Figment said.

Dr. Channing was silent, “I see your point, but why do you know how to pick locks.”

Figment shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s something that I’ve always been able to do.”

“So, can you pick this lock?” Dr. Channing asked.

“Yeah, hold on. I need some tools” Figment said. He quickly flew towards the old lab. He went in and began to rummage through the toolbox. He found the screwdriver, but the tension wrench was missing. He dived deeper into it. “It should be here” He said to himself. He began to look around the room. He looked under the Mesmonic Converter. There he saw a little piece of metal. He reached out and grabbed it. It was the tension wrench!

He flew back to where Dr. Channing was waiting. “That took you a while.” He commented

“I just had to find this little metal thing.” He held up the tension wrench.

“That is a tension wrench.” Dr. Channing said. “Where did you get one of those?”

“Oh, just, you know… found it” Figment said.

“Uh huh…” Dr. Channing said. “Well can you open the lock.”

“Yes!” Figment said. He inserted the tension wrench and the screwdriver into the lock. He fiddled around with it for a few moments until there was a click. He pushed down on the doorknob and it moved down with his hand. The door opened. It revealed a dark room. The light from the hallway revealed a couple of shelves filled with files. “There aren’t that many files.” Figment said. “This should be quick

“Not so fast.” Dr. Channing said. He turned on the lights. Each row of lights turned on one by one. Each time revealing more and more shelves.

“Oh no” Figment said.

Dr. Channing sighed. “Yes, that is how many files we could look through, but we don’t have to.”

“What do you mean?” Figment asked.

“Well, we could go through the records one by one until our brains are fried, or we could simply use logic.” Dr. Channing said. “You see the records are cut into sections. These sections are rooms, studies, equipment, and finally employees.” He gestured to each section as name them. “Each one of these has all their filing information in alphabetical order.” He pointed at the employee section. “So, we would just have to go look at employees and go into the F section to find Finder, Dean.” 

“But his name is Dean Finder, not Finder Dean.” Figment said.

“Well, that’s just how names are filed. Someone long before me decided that.” Dr. Channing said.

“That’s dumb” Figment said. 

“It’s just the way things are.” Dr. Channing said. He headed over to the F section of the Employees area. He began to flip through the files. “Let’s see… Filipi, Finau, Finny, Fitzgerald, Fitzherbert.” He stops. “Huh. It doesn’t seem as though there is a Finder here.”

“Do you think it is in the wrong place?” Figment asked.

“I don’t think so…” Dr. Channing said. “This place is up to an incredibly high standard of organization. Everything is where it should be.”

“You’re wrong. There’s probably something in the wrong spot.” He began to frantically fly from section to section. He wanted to see if there was something in the wrong place an employee file in the equipment section or maybe an i before an e. Something that would prove Dr. Channing wrong. But he found nothing.

“You see this place is set up to be perfectly organized.” Dr. Channing said.

“Maybe… but the file could be around here.” Figment said.

Dr. Channing sighed. “Well, we could look through the all the files if that would make you feel better.” 

“It would,” Figment said.

“Well, if we must search through the records than we should take two halves.” Dr. Channing said. “You take equipment and studies, and I’ll take employees and rooms.”

They both went to their sections. They combed through the files. Papers began to get stacked all around them. The once neat filing system had become a mess of chaos. Papers had were everywhere. They went through the files for what must have been hours. “Well, this is proving to be quite pointless.” Dr Channing said. “I think we should take a break from this search and gather our thoughts don’t you think.”

“But, if we stop now, then we won’t be able to find anything!” Figment exclaimed

“If you really want to you can continue to look through the files later. They will still be here. We need to take a break.” Dr. Channing said.

“Alright” Figment said.

They headed back to the office. The darkness in the hallway seemed to be closing in on them. The silence had increased, it was only disturbed by the footsteps of Dr. Channing. And, the papers and equipment were still cluttered the floor. “Why hasn’t anyone bothered to clean up?” Dr. Channing said. “This is disgraceful!”

They arrived at his office again. It was clean and neat just like it was when they left. Dr. Channing slumped into his chair. Figment sat on the couch. He looked out of the window. He stared at the flowers that grew in front of the Institute and the trees that slowly swayed with every gentle breeze. “So, Doc. Why do you think that we couldn’t find anything?” Figment asked.

“Well, I have some ideas. The first one was that he probably had access to the records. Someone that for whatever reason wanted to erase his presence. But that simply raises the question as to why he wouldn’t remove his name from the door if he went through the effort of erasing himself from the records.”

“Maybe he worked here before you did. That’s why you don’t know him.” Figment said.

Dr. Channing scoffed. “Figment. I founded the Imagination Institute. It is impossible for someone to have worked here before me.”

“Then shouldn’t you know him?” Figment asked.

“Well, of course I should know him, and in fact I probably do. It’s just that so many people have come and gone from the Institute that it gets hard to keep track of them all.”

“Maybe someone else knows him” Figment said.

“Like whom?” Dr. Channing asks.

“Like anyone. If he worked here than someone is bound to know who he is” Figment said.

“You’re right!” Dr. Channing exclaimed. “We should be able to find him easily by asking around.” Dr. Channing jumped out of his chair. Let’s go out and ask people right now.”

“Okay!” Figment exclaimed. He rushed out into the hallway. Dr. Channing was quickly behind him. They walked around the halls hoping to run into someone, but there wasn’t anyone. “Maybe we should check one of the labs” Figment said.

They knocked on the door to the Touch Lab. There was no answer. Dr. Channing opened the door. It was dark, and it was empty. They went over to the Taste Lab and once again there was nobody . They went to lab after lab looking for someone, anyone. But still, there was no one there. “That’s strange. I know for a fact that all of the labs we have seen should be filled with people.” Dr. Channing said.

“Where do you think they all went?” Figment asked.

“Well, it is very unlikely that all of them have decided to play hooky for the day.” Dr. Channing said. “Something is up. I am going back to my office to see if anyone clocked in at all today.”

“I saw a bunch of people coming in this morning when I was waiting for you.” Figment said.

“Oh, did you now?” Dr. Channing said.

“Yeah. I did.” Figment said.

“Everything makes sense now.” Dr. Channing said. Then he made a sound that Figment had never heard him make before. It was sound that was wholly out of place with this mystery. It was laughter. It rang out through the empty halls.

Figment stood there stunned. “What’s so funny?” Figment asked.

Dr. Channing ceased laughing for a moment. “This has been fun Figment, but I don’t really have time for your pranks right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Chapter 3 will hopefully be posted on March 7th.  
> March 5th, 2020: Chapter 3 has been pushed back to March 14th  
> March 17th, 2020: Chapter 3 is currently a confusing mess, so it is delayed until I can figure it out. Probs post it by the 20th  
> April 21st, 2020: I swear I am making progress. This whole pandemic has really disorientated me. It may be posted sometime in May. That's after my semester ends. I'll have more time to work on it.  
> May 12th, 2020: Consistent progress is being made. The story may be posted either Sunday or Saturday. I initially wanted to post it Friday, but She-Ra season 5 comes out that day and I am dedicating a day I'd normally dedicate to writing to watching She-Ra instead.   
> Sorry for the inconsistent posting schedule, but I have other projects and college can be unpredictable at times.


	3. The Endless Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, that this was late by three months I got severely distracted.

Dr. Channing was always worrying about something. One day he would be worried about some scientists doing an experiment that they weren’t supposed to and wrecking a few labs. The next day it would be some lawsuit that they were being threatened with, it was always something like property damage or even personal injury. But, the one thing that was constantly on his mind was the Imagination Institute’s financial issues. It always seemed like they were barely scraping by month by month. That’s why the open house was so important that they had to do it twice, because if they didn’t wow people, they could lose crucial funding and have to shut down everything. It was near impossible to convince people that there was any reason to keep funding studies into imagination.

Figment knew all of this. Sure, he didn’t understand the intricacies of running a scientific institution, but what he did know was that Dr. Channing was never really that happy. Yesterday’s open house was the first time Figment thought that he had ever really seen him smile. Figment really wanted to see Dr. Channing smile more and maybe even laugh. He tried everything that he could. He pulled lighthearted pranks. He told jokes. He would sometimes even make little pieces of art for Dr. Channing. But no matter what he did Dr. Channing never laughed, in fact he rarely even cracked a smile. Figment just wanted to hear Dr. Channing laugh at least one time. But he never wanted to hear it like this.

“This isn’t a prank, Doc!” Figment cried.

“Of course, it is. You can drop the act now that I’ve figured it out. I really need to get back and focus on my work” Dr. Channing.

“It’s not an act! There really is something really wrong here!” Figment shouted.

Dr. Channing crossed his arms. “Well then, what is wrong? Besides the fact that no one is doing their job like they are supposed to.”

“I…I don’t know. It’s just a feeling that I have.” Figment said.

“Well,” Dr. Channing replied. “Making assumptions solely on feelings isn’t very scientific, Figment. You need evidence to reach your conclusion, and even if you are being serious, which you aren’t, you don’t have any.”

Figment was silent for a second. He was thinking about everything hoping that there was one thing that could prove that something was wrong here. “The door!” Figment shouted.

“The door?” Dr. Channing replied.

“Yes! The door! We still don’t know who Dean Finder is!” Figment shouted.

“Dean Finder is something YOU made up for your little game” Dr. Channing replied.

“But, I didn’t” Figment cried. “I can’t make objects for that long.”

“Well, if you didn’t make it, then perhaps someone else did as a prank hoping to confuse whoever found the door.” Dr. Channing said.

“Why are you so convinced that this is a prank? Why don’t you believe that this is serious?! Why don’t you believe that I’m being serious?!” Figment asked.

“It’s simple. You’re Figment. You can’t be serious. You don’t have a single serious bone in your body.” Dr. Channing said.

“I… I can’t believe this.” Figment said. Tears began to well up in his eyes. “I thought that after yesterday you finally understood me. That you would finally take me seriously. But, now… now I see that you’ll never see me as anything more than a joke.”

Dr. Channing stood there stunned by what Figment had just said. He honestly couldn’t believe that. By the time that he thought of something to say Figment had already disappeared.

Figment flew through the Imagination Institute. The thoughts in his raced faster than he could fly. His emotions were a horrible mixed storm. He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. He didn’t know where he was in the Imagination Institute, and he didn’t care. He would be fine anywhere in the Imagination Institute as long as Dr. Channing wasn’t there.

He eventually bumped into a door. He didn’t have to look up to know what door he ran into. He just knew. He looked at it. It seemed to loom over him. Taunting him because he couldn’t solve the mystery that the door posed. Figment looked at the door and sighed. “Maybe Doc was right” He said “Maybe this is some prank someone pulled. Maybe I am being ridiculous.”

Figment turned away from the door. He had calmed down a bit and was thinking more clearly. He didn’t want to deal with anyone right now. He just wanted to be alone. Figment flew to the one place where no one would bother him. It was an old supply closet that no one ever used in a secluded section of the Imagination Institute.

Figment entered the supply closet. He had modified it to seem like it was a bedroom. In the corner there were some blankets and quilts and one pillow that he had taken from the Dream Lab. He had moved some shelves out, but the ones he kept he had put little decorations that he made on the shelves. On the walls there were little drawings and doodles that he had taped up to make the beige wall more inviting. The room was dimly illuminated by some string lights that Figment had found in a box when he first started decorating.

Figment felt extremely tired. He was surprised that he was so tired, not realizing that he had spent so much energy over the past two days and didn’t even sleep for a moment. He floated over to the makeshift bed in the corner of the room. He lied down on the blankets and pulled the quilt up. He puffed up his pillow trying to make it more comfortable. He put his head down and closed his eyes. quickly drifted off to sleep.

Figment’s dreams were always vivid and strangely consistent. They were always places that Figment felt that he should recognize but he never really did. In these dreams, they always followed the same man. This man was someone Figment felt that he knew. He didn’t know why it was just a feeling that he got whenever he looked at him. The man was the subject of Figment’s dreams ever since he could remember. This man was part of a mystery that, just like the door, Figment just couldn’t figure out.

It was difficult to make out any specific features of the man, he could only see general features. Figment could tell that the man had a brown hair, a beard. He wore a suit like Dr. Channing, but it was more colorful and more like what Figment had seen images people wore almost a hundred years ago, the only difference was that this man didn’t have a top hat. The most notable thing was that he was always sad and always worried no matter what had happened.

Figment had always wanted to ask him why he was so sad, but he found that he couldn’t interact with the man at all. He was simply an invisible spectator. Figment followed him around watching whatever the man did. He would sometimes see the man talking to people, but their conversations were always muted. The only parts of the conversation that Figment could follow were their body language. It was clear that the man was always desperately asking them about something, but it was clear that the answer was always no.

In this dream the man was going around asking questions in the same desperate way that he had for the past two months. There was no one around that he wasn’t asking. Anyone who walking within ten feet of him would get asked the same questions. But he was met with no after no. After each person said no, he would hand them a piece of paper, some took it out of politeness while others down right rejected it. Despite his best efforts there was no one around who could help him. The despair that radiated off of him was palpable. He went over to a secluded area.

It was a field. He sat down near a strange machine that he always had around him. It looked like a red zeppelin had gotten mixed up with a bag pipe, an orchestra’s brass section, and a whirly tube. The man looked at the paper in his hand. Figment could see tears well-up in his eyes. “I’m sorry.” The man said. His voice was filled with despair.

Figment was taken slightly aback. This was the first time that he had ever heard him speak. He got closer to the man to hear what he was saying more. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry that I can’t find you. I’m sorry for ever putting you in danger” The man continued. “Running into that fight, and bringing you along was the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done.” He was silent for a second. “And look at what that decision has cost me.”

Figment thought that maybe he was talking to him for a second. Maybe he was finally able to see him, but if he did then why was he apologizing? But, he noticed that the man was looking at the paper and was talking to that instead. “I thought you and I could handle anything after what we had been through. I guess saving the world a couple of times can really make you feel indestructible, huh?”

Figment was hanging onto every word that the man said. “I thought that he was just another nightmare. Something we had encountered dozens of times by then. Something we had always managed to be able to defeat. But he was so much stronger than all the others. I still don’t understand why” The man looked like he was reliving his most painful memory. “I thought that we should split up during the fight. That was such a foolish decision. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t regret it. I tried to distract him, make him focus on me, but he didn’t. He turned to you. I still remember the moment he grabbed you. You seemed so scared. I tried to get to you. I tried to save you, but he knocked me back, and the second I got up he just vanished.”

Tears began to stream down his face. “I was left standing there alone. I truly couldn’t comprehend what had happened. I didn’t want to comprehend what just happen. I stood there for what must have been hours. And when I finally realized what had happened, I collapsed to the ground.” Tears began to stream from the man’s eyes. “I never thought I would lose you, just like I had lost everything else.”

The man rested his head on the machine. “You were the most important person to me. I never realized that up until you were gone. You really did change my life. All the wonderful things in my life are because I meet you.” He sighed. “I would give anything to see you again, hear the little jokes that you would tell, or see the one of your little drawings. ”

The man’s tears began to form into a deep sob. “And now, I’m probably never going to see you again. I miss you so much. I miss you more than words could describe. I don’t know what’s happening to you right now. I don’t know if you’re scared, I don’t know if you’re hurt. That terrifies me more than anything the thought of you being scared, hurt and alone. I can only hope you’re not.”

Figment wanted to comfort the man more than anything, but he knew that even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to. “I hope you managed to escape. Maybe you are even already back at the Dreamport. Looking for me. Wondering where I am.” His face became a little lighter with hope, but it shortly darkened. “But you probably aren’t. If I go back, there you’ll still be gone, and it will be just as empty as it was before.” The thought really seemed to hurt the man more than anything else. His sobs became deeper.

Figment knew he couldn’t just stand there and watch him cry. He went over the man and tried to give him a hug. Like with every other time Figment tired to interact with the man he passed straight through, but Figment didn’t give up. He put all his energy into giving him a hug. The man stopped crying for a few seconds. He looked around. It was as if he could sense Figment. The man got up. His expression changed from sorrow to steely resolve. “I know you’re out there.” He said. “And, I am going to find you. Even if it takes a thousand years. I will find you.”

Seconds after that Figment woke up. No longer was he in the field, but now he was in the supply closet that he called home. He stared at the emptiness in his room. There was one word that rang out in his mind that he had heard. One word that is so strange, but it is so familiar to him. “Dreamport…” Figment said testing out how the word sounded to him. He didn’t know why, but it felt so important that he knew that word. “Dreamport...” Figment said again. “Why does that make me think of home?”. There was no answer to the question he just posed. But, it was another mystery that he was willing to get to the bottom of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to try to post chapters on Friday, so next chapter will hopefully be posted on May 22, 2020  
> Update May 20, 2020: I've been sick for the past few days and unable to write so chapter 4 will be postponed to May 29, 2020


	4. Searching For Clues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figment begins his search to find answers to the many mysteries that plagued his mind alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for the amount of Scooby-Doo in this chapter

Figment considered his search with Dr. Channing a failure. The only thing he discovered was that Dr. Channing didn’t take him seriously at all. Every single thing Figment did Dr. Channing was just tolerating and playing along. Regardless of whether or not he was being serious, he saw Figment as a joke. Sure, Figment didn’t have the best serious streak and always leaned towards the more silly side of things. But still… there were times where he was serious and needed to be taken seriously. Something he did gain from his search was more determination to solve the endless parade of riddles he was presented with. There was no force on Earth that could stop him from finding out the truth.

What he badly needed but didn’t have was evidence. Evidence was what Dr. Channing said he needed, so that was what Figment was going to find. But, where to begin? He wasn’t even sure which mystery he was solving. Would he solve the mystery of Dean Finder’s door and his absence? Or perhaps he would investigate what the Mesmonic Converter was and what it was supposed to do? Maybe he would investigate the strange man in his dreams? After all the Imagination Institute had an entire section dedicated to strange dreams. There were just too many mysteries for Figment to decide.

Figment tried to think rationally about it. That’s what Dr. Channing always said he should do. There were thousands of logical ways he could go about solving this. But logic and rationality had never appealed to Figment. He had always been the one to do something far beyond thought. Typically, it was just whatever little idea popped into his head at the moment, like what tagging along on the open house tour. That had worked for him for his entire life. Thinking before acting was never something he needed to do. But he has never dealt with something as serious as this. So, he decided that he had to change his approach.

What he needed was a frame of reference. Fictional characters had always helped Figment figure out concepts he didn’t fully understand. Perhaps it was because he felt a kinship with them, after all he was a fictional character that simply became real, or maybe it was that they were familiar to him. Another good thing, he thought, was that fictional characters didn’t brush you off or think that you were only a joke. He thought of the best mystery solvers he could think of. The ones who never failed to solve a mystery. There was only one group that fit that description. The Scooby-Doo gang.

In one of the Imagination Institute’s breakroom there was a TV. The TV wasn’t the newest piece of tech on the block, it was an old CRT television from the 90s. It wasn’t connected to any sort of cable, the only thing it had to play anything was an ancient VCR. Most of the VHS tapes were of things like episodes of old dramas, sports games from years ago, and the occasional movie. When Figment first appeared one of the scientists brought a box filled with old VHS tapes. Apparently, it was what their kids used to watch, but since they were all adults, he didn’t have any use for them. Figment had rummaged through the box and found a treasure trove of interesting cartoons. He loved Animaniacs because he related to the fact that the Warner Siblings were beings of pure chaos, Ducktales for its fun adventures, and Dexter’s Laboratory because it reminded of living in the Imagination Institute. But, his most favorite after all of them was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

The show was older than most of the other series having been made in the late sixties and early seventies rather than the eighties and nineties, but there was something about it that Figment just loved about it. Each episode the gang would get lost or stuck in some place and there was a mysterious monster or ghost scaring everyone around. They decide that they need to get to the bottom of it and investigate it. Everyone splits up and they all have some encounter with a monster. This leads to a wacky chase scene, and eventually the capture. When they have their guy, they unmask him and find that it was the groundskeeper or some other character that they had meet earlier. Though the show was incredibly formulaic, Figment absolutely adored it.

The thing that Figment loved the most about the show was how the gang was always together, even when they split up. They had a friendship that managed to triumph countless challenges, and often ended with them making jokes and laughing. Sometimes, he wanted them to show more of the Scooby-Doo gang, like what they did when they traveled or really when they weren’t solving mysteries. He would write stories about them. This was all because Figment wished he could have a friend group like that. Sure, he was loved by everyone in the Imagination Institute. Sure, he could pop into any lab and be greeted warmly by scientists. But at the end of the day he didn’t really have any friends. The closest thing he had to a friend was his creator, Dr. Channing, but even that wasn’t really that close, and with him dismissing Figment about the whole Dean Finder situation; Figment didn’t really want to see him right now.

So, with a lack of a friend group, Figment had to become a one-man Mystery Inc. He wanted to get into character. Dressing up like one of the was the best way for him to do this. But, who would he dress up as? Velma was the brains and always came to up with the best conclusions. Fred always had a plan and various traps to catch who they needed. Daphne was very intuitive. And Scooby and Shaggy always managed to make everything better. Figment loved all of them. He couldn’t dress up as just one of them. But what if he dressed up as all of them?

He went over to a stack of paper he kept in his room and grabbed some crayons. The outfit had to be a combination of all five of them. Figment doodled a bunch of different concepts. Each member should be represented. For the outfit he decided that he would wear Daphne’s headband, Velma’s glasses, Fred’s ascot, Shaggy’s t-shirt, and Scooby Doo’s nametag but with an F instead of SD was pinned to his shirt. After he was done drawing, he looked at the result. In his eyes it was wonderful. Now, all he had to do was change into it.

Changing outfits was something that came naturally to Figment. All he had to do was think about what he wanted his outfit to be then he would be wearing it. It was really convenient and saved him a lot of time. The main outfit that Figment wore was a yellow turtleneck with red stripes. He didn’t know where he got the idea for it. It was always just something that felt natural and comforting to him. But, now was not the time for the sweater. Now, is the time for the mystery outfit. Figment looked at the little drawing that he made. He closed his eyes and pictured it in his mind. When he opened his eyes, he was wearing the outfit.

Figment grabbed a mirror from one of the shelves. He looked at himself in the mirror. Everything looked great. The only problem was the glasses. Since Figment didn’t have ears, they just hung down his snout. He took off the glasses and looked at them. There had to be some solution to this issue, Figment thought. Millions of potential solutions fluttered through his mind. Many of them were very complex. Figment wasn’t a fan of the complex. When it came to solutions, he found that simple was best. All he had to do was get them to stick to the side of his head. On a nearby shelf Figment kept crafting supplies for when he got bored. There was a roll of scotch tape. He grabbed the tape and tapped the glasses to the side of his head. This worked surprisingly well.

Now that Figment had the proper outfit for thinking he needed to investigate. But even with his nice new outfit he still couldn’t figure out what to do. He thought about how Velma would do. Velma would probably make a list of all the mysteries that were at hand. Figment grabbed some copy paper and some crayons and began to write down all the questions he could think of like Who is Dean Finder? Who is the man in his dreams? What is the Mesmonic Converter? Why doesn’t it work? Is there someone who is behind it all? There were more questions that Figment had. Thirteen in total in fact, but there could be more that he couldn’t think of.

He began to vet which ones he could easily solve. “Why does everything feel so wrong?” was too broad of a question. Figment wouldn’t even know where to search for evidence for that one. “Why doesn’t Doc believe him?” is another question that Figment really couldn’t answer. That whole confrontation just felt so out of character for him. He didn’t really want to dwell on that question. In fact, he didn’t really want to think about that situation at all. “Why doesn’t the Mesmonic Converter work?” was probably his best bet for figuring out the fastest. Plus, it would help him answer the question about what it was.

Figment put down his crayon and paper and went over to the door. He opened it slowly. It let out a mournful creek. The hallway seemed to be devoid of people, but Figment wasn’t too sure. No one should know about the Mesmonic Converter. If they found out they might decide that its garbage and break it down for scrap metal. Figment would never solve the mystery if they destroyed it. Also, Figment would probably get in trouble for the broken window. He silently slipped out of the room.

The halls were just as deserted as they were when Figment was searching with Dr. Channing. Figment wondered what the time was. Despite the fact that Dr. Channing was always talking about punctuality there weren’t really any clocks in the Imagination Institute. Perhaps he thought that all the scientists there would have watches. A scientists probably wouldn’t wear a watch all the time since watches and other jewelry can be dangerous when doing experiments. There also weren’t really any windows in the Imagination Institute, aside from the lobby. Figment thinks he remembers Dr. Channing telling him about the confidentiality of the experiments, but he really wasn’t sure. Time didn’t really even matter to Figment all that much. He only really wanted to know because he was trying to avoid Dr. Channing.

It was completely silent in the Imagination Institute. The only sound that Figment could hear was the buzz of his wings as he flew through the hallways. Hallways in the Imagination Institute were always like a maze. There were many that led to nowhere, and sometimes even if you walked in a straight line you would end right back to where you came from. It reminded Figment of a story that he had read about an inventor and his son trapped in maze and forced to make wings to escape. He never really liked that story much because it didn’t really have a happy ending.

The Dean Finder door and the Mesmonic Converter where always so difficult to find. It always seemed like something was hiding them. Figment had only managed to find it once on purpose and that took a good twenty minutes. Sometimes it felt as though the Imagination Institute was an endless stream of hallways and labs that were randomly generated with no real sense of order. The only real way to traverse was to have a destination in mind. If you didn’t than you could get lost in the corridors forever.

Figment’s mind was very inconsistent when it came to focusing. There were moments when he couldn’t focus on a single thing for more than a millisecond, and there were times when he could only focus on one thing for several hours. Unfortunately, for him he was solely focused on finding the lab at the time. Nothing else could enter his mind. So, he didn’t hear the footsteps that were behind him. “Figment?” The person behind him said. Figment stopped in his tracks. He couldn’t believe it. The one person that he was trying to avoid in the entire world. “What are you doing here? It’s so late.” Dr. Channing asked.

There was only one thing that Figment wanted to do in that very moment, he wanted to fly away as fast as he could. If he did that Dr. Channing would get suspicious, so he had to pretend that everything was completely and totally normal. He turned around. “Heyyyyy, Doc. I’m just exploring the Imagination Institute. What are you doing here?”

Dr. Channing squinted. Figment felt as though Dr. Channing could see through him as if he were transparent. If Figment wasn’t careful, he would actually turn transparent. Dr. Channing would definitely know that Figment was up to something if he did that. “I had to stay late to finish some paperwork.”

“That’s cool. Well, I have to go there something I need to do.” Figment was in the middle of taking off when he heard a shout.

“Wait!” Dr. Channing said. Figment stopped completely when he heard that. He didn’t turn around to face Dr. Channing. Instead he just stood there with his back to him. There were a million reasons Dr. Channing would want to talk to him. “Figment, listen. I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”

Figment was a bit stunned to hear this. Every single time Dr. Channing had apologized it wasn’t really genuine and was more professional. A lot of those times he was apologizing for Figment’s behavior. When that happened though it wasn’t really Figment’s fault. He didn’t know the difference between formal situations and casual situations. Though it always seemed to work out in the end as many people ended up finding Figment’s action adorable. But after each event Dr. Channing always seemed mad with him. He never stated that he angry or annoyed, but Figment could always sense it in his gestures and his tone when he spoke. Figment was always good at reading people tones, and this time Dr. Channing’s tone sounded genuine. “You’re apologizing? Why?” Figment asked, even though he already knew the answer.

Dr. Channing took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier. I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of your concerns.”

Hearing this apology made Figment feel a bit better. “I just don’t understand why you were so upset about a simple door. Not everything is a mystery that needed to be solved. After all it could just be a prank.”

Figment’s stomach dropped. Unbelievable, Dr. Channing dismissed him again This is what Dr. Channing thought a good apology was? “Why would someone do this as a prank?!” Figment wanted to ask, but he knew that no matter what he said Dr. Channing wouldn’t be convinced. Every second that Figment spent talking to him was a second that he could be solving the mysteries. So, he had one single option. Play along. “I guess, you’re right Doc. That was just a silly mystery.”

Dr. Channing seemed pleased with this response. “That is correct. Now, why are dressed like a boy scout?” He asked.

Figment was a bit confused. “I’m not dressed as a boy scout?” He said. His anxiety about solving the mysteries grew. This conversation was taking too long. It needed to end right now. “Well, I have to go! Bye” As soon as he said that he zipped away.

In a few seconds he had arrived at the Dean Finder door. He didn’t crash into this time, so that was good. The door wasn’t what he was interested in right now. What he wanted was the lab. Its window was still covered up with the paper that Figment had put up. Though Figment didn’t want anyone to find the machine, this paper covering was probably the best security he could ask for. Most people wouldn’t even glance twice at the lab. They would take one look at the paper and decide that it wasn’t worth their time.

Figment peeled the paper off. The sound of ripping filled the hallway. He looked around to make sure no one had heard him. There wasn’t anyone there. In a few seconds, the paper was completely off. He zipped quietly into the room and put the paper back up.

The room was completely dark. Fortunately, Figment could see better in the dark better than any human, so finding the light switch was a very easy task. He flicked it on with a click. Fluorescent lights buzzed to life and bathed the lab in a sickly lab. Nothing had changed since Figment had last been here. The Mesmonic Converter stood silently in the corner. It was still surrounded by the tools that Figment had used to try and fix it. Dust was still settled on every surface in the lab. Everything was in place as it should be.

He went over to the Mesmonic Converter. It was the only non-dust covered thing in the lab, though it wasn’t exactly unblemished. The edges of it had began to rust. Figment felt a tinge worry. Maybe the machine wasn’t working because something inside it had rusted. But if that was the case then Figment was sure he would have managed to catch it. He investigated the rust the area above didn’t exactly have a diamond finish, but it wasn’t rusted into nothingness. Figment caught he reflection and looked at it.

He did kind of look like a boy scout, or at least what he thought a boy scout looked like. Figment had never seen a boy scout outside of movies and television. From what he knew it was all camping and friendship, two things that really appealed to Figment. The only people that Figment had really interacted with were the scientists, he never got to meet any other kids. He had never been outside the Imagination Institute, as far as he knew there was nothing there. His whole world was the Imagination Institute.

At the moment he had to shift his focus. The Mesmonic Converter was in this lab. This lab seemed to probably have been dedicated to it. If this lab was dedicated to it then there had to be some sort of blueprints or at the very least notes. Figment opened up a nearby cabinet and began to look through it. There wasn’t anything he could really find. He checked another cabinet, same result. He opened up a drawer and looked down. What he saw was unbelievable. It was an old image from what must have been a couple of decades ago. In it what must have been a much younger Dr. Channing stood next to the Mesmonic Converter with what could have been a few lab assistants. He stared at the image with wide eyes. “This was… Dr. Channing’s lab?” He asked aloud to no one.

That might just have been the best lead that Figment couldn’t have expected. But this information came at a price because Dr. Channing was suspect number one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter took much longer than expected. I also don't have an exact release date for the next chapter since, I'll be without my computer for a bit. The best bet is early July.   
> Special: Figment's Mystery Solving Outfit art   
> https://pinkrose787.tumblr.com/post/620563303587086336/art-of-figments-mystery-solving-outfit-from


	5. Deciding What To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figment doesn't know how to feel about Dr. Channing anymore, so he decides to talk to the people he knows the best, himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this took a bit longer than anticipated! I hope you like it! :D

Figment paced about the room. The hum of his wings blended in with the hum of the fluorescent lights. Thoughts raced around in his mind faster than lighting. He always wanted to assume the best of people. It was easy for him. There was never anyone really out to harm him. Most of the bad things that happened were accidents. But with everything that had happened lately, he was having trouble assuming the best of Dr. Channing right now.

Dr. Channing was behind the Mesmonic Converter. That part was undeniable. It didn’t really mean that Dr. Channing had done anything wrong. In fact, it under different circumstances would be a good thing. He could ask him what it was, and why it doesn’t work! Though, he probably wouldn’t have liked the fact that Figment had been tinkering with it. But there was one thing that Figment could not forget.

The Dean Finder door was a hammer’s throw from the lab. It was there in your face when you exited the lab. Dr. Channing had to know who Dean Finder was. There was no denying it. And the more Figment thought about it the more sense it made. The only person to had access to all the files and could change them was Dr. Channing. The only person who was able to access the Imagination Institute’s archive was Dr. Channing. He was behind the mystery of Dean Finder. He had to be.

If he was then that would explain why he had been so dismissive of the whole thing. It also explained what happened to the files, why there wasn’t a single trace of him in the computer system. Dr. Channing also removed the file from the archives. That’s why he knew it wasn’t there. And later with everyone missing, Dr. Channing must have told them all to go home. That way no one could tell Figment anything about what happened to Dean Finder.

But, why would Dr. Channing go through all the effort to completely remove someone from the system, only to keep the door? Had Dean Finder stepped out of line and Dr. Channing had to completely wipe him from everything, only keeping the door as a reminder to everyone who worked at the Imagination Institute? Was Dean Finder now a disgraced scientist that wondered the countryside as a lone vagabond or had Dr. Channing… No. He didn’t want to think about that.

Plus, Dr. Channing was a good guy. He had only ever really been nice to everyone the entire time Figment had been there. Figment felt for sure that he knew him. But, how well can you know someone if you have only known them for a couple of months. There are millions thing that Figment couldn’t know about Dr. Channing. In fact, now that he thought about it there were millions of things, he didn’t know about him. Figment didn’t know what Dr. Channing if he had any friends, he didn’t know what his childhood was like, in fact he didn’t know what Dr. Channing did outside of the Imagination Institute. As far as Figment knew this facility was his whole life.

There was no way that was the truth. Dr. Channing left the Institute every single night and came back in the morning. He even took weekends off. So, during those times he had to be doing something. Maybe he played lacrosse, or maybe he just sat in a blank room and read a book about OSHA guidelines until it was time to come back to the Imagination Institute. That seemed incredibly boring, which it why it was perfect for Dr. Channing.

Figment had never left the Imagination Institute himself. It wasn’t explicitly forbidden, but it wasn’t really encouraged either. Dr. Channing always wanted to keep the chaos that typically occurred inside of the Imagination Institute inside of the Imagination Institute. The thought of any of it leaking out would cause him immense amounts of anxiety, and Figment didn’t want to worry his friend, so he just stayed inside the Imagination Institute. Most of the time it was manageable, there were all kinds of different scientists to talk to, and it was always exciting when there were guests like there was during the open house. But those times always came to an end. When the weekend came everyone went home, and Figment was left alone.

Those two days always felt so long. Figment during the first weekend he tried to leave. He tried every single thing he could. Everything from lockpicking the doors to trying to break open windows. Strangely, none of them worked. Up until Figment smashed the window of Dr. Channing’s old lab, he simply thought that doors were impossible to break. Despite that thought he did try to open Dean Finder’s door, with the same amount of success that he should have been expecting.

Figment tried to make the best of the situation of being locked in an abandoned building for two days. He would sneak into people’s labs and poke about. When he did this he tried his best not to really touch or destroy anything, but sometimes he would knock something over. Figment always cleaned up after himself, so the only thing someone would notice is maybe a beaker is missing or a Bunsen burner is on its side. Most of the time they just assumed that they had made a mistake while cleaning up their lab, and simply leave it to that. There were some people who suspected Figment was the one who messed up their lab, but they could never prove it and it didn’t help that most people at the Imagination Institute assumed that Figment could do no wrong.

Another thing that really stopped the loneliness was something that Figment was able to summon clones of himself. He had gotten the idea when he saw an episode of Naruto where they used shadow clone jutsu. Seeing that made him think about doing it himself. There were a lot of powers that Figment had that he hadn’t really unlocked yet, so he thought that maybe he could do that. When he first tried, he wasn’t really that successful. He managed, to make something that sort of looked like him. It was a dragon like him, but the horns were longer, the wings were bigger and most noticeably it was green. The second time he tried it he had a lot more success. That clone was almost perfect. He tried it a lot more times and, on the eleventh try he managed to perfect it.

These clones were a lot of fun. He was now able to play games that he wasn’t able to play with anyone else. He even would use it to wow people like he did at the end of the open house. That part was really well liked by most guests. Many of them said it was the best part of the tour. Figment felt really proud of himself that so many people liked it. He just wished that the clones weren’t the only people he’d be able to interact with sometimes. Only seeing himself got really lonely at times, but Figment managed.

Now, was a time when he needed to talk to someone, but the only person he could talk to was himself. He summoned four different Figments each of them looked identical to him and were wearing the exact same mystery solving outfit. The only difference was the color of their shirts. Regular Figment wore a green shirt while the clones wore yellow, blue, red, and purple. “I don’t know what I should do about Doc. This is too much!”

“You know what I think?” Red said. He crossed his arms “I think he has had it out for us since we were created. I think we get this machine up and running and get revenge.”

“Doc might be innocent!” Yellow exclaimed. “We don’t really know that he’s done anything wrong!”

“I agree with Yellow.” Purple said. “Look at the evidence we have.” He summoned a white board and a purple white board marker. Purple began to write down the facts that they had discovered. “We recently learned that Doc is behind the Mesmonic Converter and that this was his lab, and that he could have messed with the files. But all this evidence is circumstantial at best. It isn’t enough.”

Blue spoke up. His voice was quiet. “I think Doc hates us. He always seems so annoyed when we are around. He doesn’t listen to us and he rarely ever talks to us.”

“He does like us!” Yellow shouted. “He just doesn’t really know how to express it.”

“I think you’re wrong and Blue is right. He doesn’t like us, and he doesn’t care about us. He never has.” Red said.

“What do you think Purple?” Yellow asked.

“I don’t know. The evidence here is very mixed. There is plenty of it to show that he does care, but a lot of evidence to show that he doesn’t. It is hard to come to a conclusion.”

“Oh, you want evidence?!” Red shouted. “I’ll give you evidence. Remember when we were created. We were praised as a scientific miracle. Evidence that it was possible to create life from nothing. For the entire day we were adored and showered with praise and attention. Then at six everyone just left us. Doc left us. Just think about the first night alone.”

“It was so cold, and so lonely.” Blue lamented.

“That’s right we were cold and alone, and we were cold and alone for every night after that. He never checked up on us. He never made sure we were okay. He has done nothing, and it’s because he doesn’t care about us! All we are to him is just another experiment.” Red said.

“But he does care about us! Why then would he have spent so much time with us earlier? He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t like us!” Yellow said.

“He just feels bad for us. That’s why he tolerates us. Doc doesn’t even want us to be around him.” Blue said.

“Doc doesn’t pity us! He just spent all that time with us today just so that he could stop us from finding out the truth!” Anger said.

All the other Figments seemed to have something to say about that.

“He was helping us!” Yellow cried.  
“Him stopping us from finding out isn’t logical.” Purple said.  
“Doc never wanted to help us” Blue said.

From there the conversation turned to them talking over one another. Yellow was trying to stay hopeful and think positively. There had to be some reason that Dr. Channing was keeping so many secrets. Red was just filled with rage. To him everything Dr. Channing had ever done had some horrible nefarious reason behind it now. Purple just wanted to get the facts of the entire situation; the lack of evidence was frustrating him beyond belief. And Blue well, he was just sad about the whole thing. Hearing that someone you care about doesn’t care about you really hurts, especially when they’re basically your dad.

Their fighting turned to shouting. Each one was desperate to be heard. But, in their fight to be heard they drowned out the others, and the others drowned out them. It was all vocal soup. Telling which Figment was saying what was almost impossible. It wasn’t helped by the fact that they all shared a voice.

“STOP!” Regular Figment cried out. The other Figments immediately went silent and turned their eyes towards him. Regular Figment was almost close to tears. “Just stop! This isn’t getting us anywhere! I don’t know if Doc likes me or cares about me, and right now I don’t care. I just want to know what I should do?!”

There was a moment of silence as each Figment thought of a suggestion. Yellow was the first one to speak up. “I think we should give him a chance to explain. It might all just be one big misunderstanding.”

“Well, I think…” Red said. “I think that we should never talk to him ever again. I think we should just leave the Imagination Institute. There has to be something better out there than there is here for us.” 

“I don’t think we should leave. If we do then we will never find out about the mysteries of this place.” Purple said.

“I don’t care about them anymore.” Blue said. “I just want to leave here.”

“Well,” Purple said. “We can’t just walk out the doors right now. They’re locked. We’re going to have to wait till morning for them to be unlocked.”

“We can’t just leave! The Imagination Institute is our home! Doc is our friend!” Yellow cried.

“He wouldn’t notice that we left anyways.” Blue said.

“Well whether or not he cares about us doesn’t matter anymore.” Red said.

“So that’s the plan?” Regular Figment said. “We just leave the Imagination Institute behind and look for something better.”

“Yep.” Red said.  
“Pretty much” Purple said.   
“Yeah.” Blue said.  
“I still think we shouldn’t.” Yellow said.

“Well,” Regular Figment said. “We are running away. Thanks for your help guys.”

“No problem.” Red said.  
“You chose the right option.” Purple said.  
“I can’t wait to see what’s outside” Blue said.  
Yellow stayed silent. Nothing he said would convince them that this was an awful idea.

With all that said the clones disappeared into a puff of smoke. The room was enveloped in silence. Figment knew what he had to do now. He left the lab turning off the lights as he left. He flew towards the supply closet that he used to think of as his room. It was empty like it always was, but with Figment leaving it felt a little more bare. He didn’t know what he should pack, after all he didn’t have much besides his drawings. He took a little bag and placed some paper and markers there. That was all he really could take with him, since he didn’t have any photos or any other sentimental items. 

He took a glance at the stack of papers that were filled with mysteries. Figment was leaving everything in the Imagination Institute behind, including every single mystery that it had. Who Dean Finder was, what the Mesmonic Converter was, and everything else. Those mysteries would never get solved. And, that really hurt Figment. Solving those mysteries was what he wanted most, but he couldn’t stay in the Imagination Institute anymore. And since he wasn’t solving mysteries anymore, he changed from his mystery solving outfit back to his iconic yellow sweater.

Figment went out to the lobby to wait for the door to be unlocked. That was going to be a while since it was 2 am and the first person didn’t come in till 5 am. He waited by the door just thinking about what he was doing. He didn’t know if Dr. Channing would notice his absence. Maybe he would just think about how quiet it had been lately. Dr. Channing always enjoyed the silence, so he would probably see this as a positive change.

The hours flew by with Figment just thinking about this. He was beginning to have second thoughts. Maybe Yellow was right. Maybe this was all a bad idea. That line of thought was interrupted when he heard the sound of keys jingling and a _click_.

Figment quickly hid. The door opened and the janitor walked in. She was always early to make sure everything was clean. It didn’t seem like she saw Figment. If she had she didn’t acknowledge him. Which would be strange for her since she was always so nice towards Figment. She left to go do her job.

He waited until she was out of sight. This was Figment’s one chance to leave without being noticed. If he waited any longer than the endless stream of scientists would start. At least one of them would notice and tell Dr. Channing about Figment’s escape. They might even try to stop him. Figment couldn’t risk it. He had to leave now.

Figment flew as fast as he could towards the door. It opened with a single push. In just a second, he was outside. The air was cool and crisp. It smelled so wonderful. The sun hadn’t risen yet, so it was still very dark. But that was okay, because that meant for the first time in his life, he would get to see the sunrise! There were so many new experiences to be had. Thinking about all of that was exciting. He looked back at the Imagination Institute. It loomed over him.

That no longer mattered. What mattered was that Figment was going to have a new life somewhere else and it was going to be great. He looked at the sky and could see some stars glimmering. Space and the night sky were something that he had read about so many times. Now he got to see it for himself. Figment took off towards the sky and for a brief moment was a little closer to the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Chapter 6 should be up by July 24th, 2020!   
> Updates on the chapter are posted on my tumblr pinkrose787 under the tag Where He Doesn't Belong!


	6. Life on the Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figment had left the Imagination Institute and was beginning to enjoy his new found freedom

It had been three days since Figment had left the Imagination Institute. Those first three days of freedom were honestly some of the best days of his life. Figment had decided to start his life over at the small town of Cocoa, Florida. It was a nice little town with a small beach, and there was something strangely familiar about it. Figment chalked that up to how he had probably seen an image about it or heard someone talking about it. Cocoa wasn’t really that far from the Imagination Institute, after all.

His favorite part of the whole town was the park. There wasn’t anything special about it, just a few benches, some grills, and a pretty average playground, but to Figment whose entire life had been spent in a scientific research facility it was the happiest place on Earth. There were a lot of other kids that Figment guessed to be about his age, though he wasn’t sure how old he was in human terms. He guessed that he was about five, but he was never really sure.

The other kids at the park loved him. They thought that he was the coolest thing that they had ever seen. And honestly, he probably was. After all it wasn’t every day that they got to meet a real-life dragon. Figment honestly adored the attention he was getting from the other kids. It was unlike anything he really had experienced at the Imagination Institute. Most of the scientists seemed to ignore him or at least be polite to him. But these kids loved being around him. Figment even managed to make a few friends.

On the other hand, the reaction from the parents were mixed. There were a few who didn’t want their kid to hang around Figment. He didn’t really understand why. Sometimes he could overhear whispers from the parents. It was difficult to tell exactly what they were saying but their tone was so harsh that Figment could still understand what they were saying. All the parents weren’t like that though. A lot of them were really nice to him. He guessed that maybe they knew he didn’t have a place to go, because many of them gave him food and other stuff. That was how he had mainly been surviving for the past couple days.

Figment guessed that he was technically homeless now, since he didn’t have anywhere to stay, but the Imagination Institute wasn’t that much better. After all he lived in a supply closet; it wasn’t exactly a penthouse suite. There was an abandoned house that Figment had managed to find. It wasn’t in the best of conditions. The windows were either broken or boarded up, and some of the side paneling was missing. Upstairs, sunlight would filter through the roof which was beginning to rust into nothing.

On the outside the house was a large porch. It was mostly empty except for a porch swing that Figment had set up. He found it in the garage of the house. And like almost everything else it at the house was musty, but it was still nice to swing on. The paneling on the side was yellow and the door and window frames were had green accents, but the paint was slowly peeling off. 

The inside wasn’t much better than the outside. Most of the wooden floors had rotted away and if stepped on would quickly collapse. That didn’t bother Figment much since he didn’t have to walk on the floor. Most of the furniture had mold growing on it or some sort of water damage. Many of the belongings of the previous inhabitants were intact. Upstairs, there was a room with a drawing board and tons of science posters. Figment avoided that room because there was an eerie emptiness to it.

Something else Figment noticed were the photos. There weren’t that many, and those that were there were so waterlogged that they were just smears of colors. Figment would look and those and try to guess what they were originally of, but he honestly never knew what they could have originally been. Only one photo wasn’t completely destroyed. It was a portrait of two people. One was tall and short black hair and the other one was shorter and had her hair in braids. Their faces were completely washed out. Figment couldn’t help it, but he felt that he knew these people somehow.

He never looked at that photograph. It frustrated him so much that he felt that way. Not only did he feel like he knew them, he felt like he missed them so much as if they were family. But Figment didn’t have a family. When he left the Imagination Institute, he chose to be alone and he knew that. There was no way of really changing that since the person he was closest to probably hated him. Still, the thought of being a part of a family appealed to him so much.

Sometimes he would think of what his life was like if he weren’t created and then trapped in a lab. He would think about what it would be like to actually have a family that cared about him. People that would have his back when something went wrong. People that he could actually talk to about things that were important to him like art and space and they would listen. People who loved him unconditionally.

Another thing he wanted was a home. It was something he saw on television, something that he read in books, and something that it seemed like everyone else on the planet had except him. Figment had heard the saying home is where the heart is, but Figment was so confused about his feelings that he wasn’t sure where his heart was. But there was one thing Figment was sure of and that it wasn’t here.

Figment went and grabbed some paper and makers and began to design his ideal home. It had to be a place that wasn’t abandoned and falling apart. A place where it was never dark, and it was never cold. A place where there were always people around and it was always so lively. This was his idea of an ideal home. It was everything that Figment never had.

He wanted to title it something. Give it a name that had a bit of pizzazz. There were a few ideas that Figment bounced around. “Figment’s Fantastic Flat” and “Figment’s Fun House” were two of the top ideas that he had. But they didn’t feel right at all. They felt very forced. One word that Figment’s mind kept going back to “Dreamport”. It was the word he heard said by the mysterious man in his dreams. Dreamport was a word that seemed nonsensical, but to Figment it made sense. Perhaps it was because to most people Figment was nonsensical too. But Figment could never get it out of his head, so he dubbed the little home he drew Dreamport.

The design of the house was something that looked interesting but didn’t seem like something Figment would make. It looked like an old large Victorian era home, the main difference was that it was covered in gears, pipes, and dials of all kind. The house was painted with bright colors that contrasted with the brass extras on the house. This place was what Figment would feel most at home at. The only thing is he didn’t know why.

Absolutely nothing about the house, aside from its bright coloring, would really appeal to Figment. Maybe he like the old look of the house, after all there had been several houses that looked like it in Scooby Doo, only those houses were often filled with people in costumes pretending to be some sort of monster. Its pipes were another mystery. They just didn’t match the rest of the house or really anything that Figment had ever seen.

Figment stared at the image. Something about it was familiar. Then it hit him. He had seen something like it before. It was from his dreams with the mysterious man. Figment’s house was just like his strange machine. They had the same brass pipes, the same red color, the same style. It looked so similar to it. But, why would Figment associate it with home? That just didn’t make sense.

However, there was something else Figment hadn’t thought of. The man in his dreams was also incredibly familiar in the same way that the machine and this abandoned house. He got another piece of paper and began to draw what he remembered about the man. The man’s blue suit, his brown hair, and his brown eyes. Looking at the drawing was almost like Figment was seeing the man in his dreams again.

Something felt like it was missing, though. Now that Figment was really getting a good look it was beginning to bother him. The mysterious man’s head felt empty as though there should be a hat. Figment grabbed a black marker and a blue marker. He quickly drew a top hat on top of the man’s head with a blue ribbon. It was the most natural thing Figment could do to improve the drawing, and best of all the drawing felt more complete.

Words began to tug at the back of Figment’s brain. There seemed to be a thousand things that Figment associated the man with. He wrote down on the paper the words that he thought of when he saw the image. Words like imagination, dream, spark. Which were all really not surprising. This man was someone Figment had dreamt of which used imagination. “Spark” could refer to spark of imagination. But there was one word that Figment couldn’t Figure out why it was there. It was one little word that held so much meaning, and it was simply “Dad”.

That word sat there and stared Figment in the face. “Dad.” He said. “Why would I think of the word, Dad?” It didn’t make sense at all. Figment didn’t’ have a dad. The closest thing to a dad was Dr. Channing since he created Figment and sort of raised Figment. But Figment had left the Imagination Institute and wasn’t going to talk to him or even see him anymore. Plus, even if Figment did have a dad, he didn’t think that his dad would be human. His dad would be a dragon like he was. Probably would be purple like him. Not a human in a blue suit.

But still Figment couldn’t shake that feeling. He hated feeling confused. Thinking about this whole conundrum gave him a headache. He didn’t really know what to do. Typically, he would summon the clones of himself and do the back and forth, but that was exhausting, and ever since he left the Imagination Institute, he has felt that his powers were a bit weaker. Maybe it was because his powers were based on people dreaming and using their imaginations. There were hordes of them at the Imagination Institute, but there wasn’t really anyone around doing any of that where Figment was.

All Figment wanted to do was distract himself from this whole situation. No more thinking about strange dreams or people that are familiar yet strange. Just a good old distraction. Figment decided he would head back to the park that he hung out at. Plus, he was getting kind of hungry and he hoped that one of the nice parents would be there to give a snack.

He went up to one of the larger holes in the roof and took off. Flying above the town of Cocoa was such a nice experience. It was always the height of Figment’s day. The scenic view of the world below him was always fantastic. There were so many things that you couldn’t see from the ground. The birds in their nests at the top of trees, the colorful roofs of the houses below, and the way that flowers on bushes blended. The air was a nice cool breeze that felt so inviting to Figment. If he had hair he was sure that it would be flying in the wind.

After only a few minutes his flight came to an end. The park was coming up so Figment began his descent. He landed on the grass near the playground. There really wasn’t anyone else at the park except Figment. The emptiness was eerie. Usually the sounds of kids playing filled the park, but there weren’t any kids there.

It was impossible to tell the time, but it was a Monday, so maybe all the kids were at school. Figment wished that he could go to school. The idea of a place where you learn new things while surrounded by friends was something that sounded like paradise to him. At the Imagination Institute he either learned from the scientists talking about whatever project they were working on or Figment read it in a book. He was really lucky that he was created with the ability to read or else he wouldn’t really know anything.

Since, there was no one really there Figment decided to travel around the town. Just like the park it was empty. No one was walking down the street, no one was driving a car around, no one was even just standing outside of the shop. The silence was eerie. Some papers flittered by in the wind. Figment shivered despite the fact that it wasn’t cold. This was almost exactly like how his search for Dean Finder went. Him wandering around an area devoid of people of people surrounded by paper.

Curiosity got the better of Figment. He wanted to know what was on the papers that were constantly going by him. There was one on the ground in front of him. He snatched it off the ground and looked at it. His stomach dropped.

On the paper was a drawing of him with the word “Missing” above it. Figment didn’t even read the rest. He didn’t need to. Dr. Channing had noticed his disappearance and was now looking for him. No matter what his living situation was outside of the Imagination Institute he never wanted to go back.

Figment zipped back to where he’d been staying. He grabbed his little backpack and quickly stuffed all his markers and drawings back into the bag. There wasn’t really any time to waste. Every single second Figment spent in this town was a second where Dr. Channing could find him. Figment went out the hole in the roof and sped away. He didn’t currently have a destination in mind. All he had to do was get as far away from this place as possible.

Thoughts about where he should go raced through his mind as he flew. He needed to go somewhere that his wings couldn’t normally take him. Somewhere that was almost impossible to reach or at the very least would take a very long time. Somewhere it was easy to disappear. Figment felt a light bulb quite literally go off over his head. He knew exactly where he needed to go. So, he turned and began making his way towards the airport.

It took a couple of hours, but Figment finally managed to reach Orlando International Airport. The airport was huge and for Figment whose sole experiences with buildings had been either having them either be scientific research facilities or was abandoned and crumbling it was pretty fancy. There were lots of shops and lots different restaurants. Even though it was a Monday in March there were a lot of people there.

Going inside of the airport was risky. He could be seen by either cameras or security. He flew up to the roof. Up there were plenty of skylights that let Figment see what was going on down there. Figment scanned the area looking for something with flight information. A screen light up in blue caught his eye. He summoned binoculars and looked through them.

On the board there was information for hundreds of flights. Figment was only looking for one though. It had to be one that had landed, and that Figment could sneak into the luggage compartment of. Most important of all was its destination. It had to be somewhere in England. There Figment could quickly fly over to London. He found one flight that was exactly what he needed. The only issue was it departed in fifteen minutes and was on the other side of the airport.

Figment flew as fast as his wings could carry him. If he missed this plane who knows how long it would be until he could catch the next one. And, with airport security being so tight he was certain that he’d be caught.

After what felt like hours of flying Figment reached the plane. They were still loading luggage onto the plane. Figment sat on the roof and the terminal and waited. He needed to luggage handlers to turn their backs just for a second. Within seconds of waiting all of the luggage handlers went over to a man who might have been their supervisor.

Figment flew faster than he ever had to get into the luggage compartment. If anyone had seen Figment, and he was pretty sure they hadn’t all they would have seen was a blur of purple and yellow. Entering the luggage compartment was disorientating. So, disorientating that Figment nearly crashed into the side of the plan. That certainly would have put a dent on his travel plans.

He was finally in the luggage compartment on the plane. It was incredibly dark in there even with the hatch open, but Figment didn’t really mind. All the flying he did had really worn him out, and all he wanted to do was sleep. And now that he was on the plane, he was finally able to do that.

Figment found a piece of luggage that was relatively soft and laid down on it. The hath closed removing any remaining light from the compartment. He could feel the plane lurch forward as it began to taxi on the runway. It sped up quickly and soon the rumble of the runway was replaced by the smoothness of the sky. With that Figment drifted off to sleep knowing that soon he would be where he couldn’t be found. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :D  
> Chapter 7 should be posted August 7th  
> Follow pinkrose787 on tumblr for updates and extras. They're under the tag "Where He Doesn't Belong"


	7. In London At Last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figment finally finds himself in the city of London, and makes an impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter took longer than I said it would. I got distracted with moving.

Figment slept peacefully on top of a suitcase. It was not the most comfortable place to sleep, but it worked. As he slept, he dreamt again of the mysterious man. The dream was the same as all the others. He followed the man through various areas where he handed out papers and asked people questions. With the word association of “dad” Figment really wanted to ask him who he was, but this time like every other time he found that he was merely a ghost unable to interact with the man at all. This was incredibly frustrating.

The plane hit some turbulence. For a few seconds the cargo hold turned into one giant maraca. All that roused Figment from his slumber. There was a brief second he forgot where he was. He thought he was back in the Imagination Institute. It took a few seconds for the truth of where he was to settle in. The memories of stowing away on an airplane going to London came back to him. Why he chose to go to London was a bit hazy. He knew that he had to get far away from the Imagination Institute, and across the Atlantic Ocean was incredibly far. Plus, he had always wanted to see London. Everything Figment had seen of it made it seem so nice.

Inside of the cargo hold. it was incredibly dark. To any human it would have been pitch black, but Figment was not human. He probably had the best night vision on the planet. The shapes of the luggage that surrounded him were very easy to see, and he could even see the colors and patterns on some of them. There was one suitcase that had lots of duct tape on it and seemed like it was ready to burst at any second. That was the one that Figment had been sleeping on. It was incredibly soft and plush.

Not only was it dark in the cabin it was also incredibly cold. If you were to put a bucket of water in the cargo hold it would turn to solid ice in a single second. Figment’s sweater didn’t really help him that much with this cold. He quickly changed his outfit to one that was much better suited for the cold. His sweater became a puffy parka, and he got a beanie that was colored like his sweater and had a large puffy thing at the top. Despite the new outfit was still very cold. He guessed that maybe they didn’t control the temperature of the cargo hold the same way they controlled the cabin’s temperature.

In the darkness of the cabin, Figment wished he had a clock or something to tell the time. He wasn’t sure how long he had slept and wasn’t sure how far the plane had traveled. They could be seconds from landing at the airport or they were a quarter of the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Either way Figment knew that he would have to wait for the plane to land.

Waiting in the dark was incredibly boring, but Figment a lot of experience with it.

He sat there in the dark for what felt like hours. Each second was worse than the last. When he was stuck in the Imagination Institute, he at least had things like television, books, and paint to distract him. Here it was just a dark void of nothingness. Figment wished that anything would happen. Anything at all just so he doesn’t have to deal with this boredom anymore.

What Figment didn’t know was that wishes were fickle things and would often come with unforeseen consequences. And Figment was not at all prepared for what his wish coming true would mean.

The bags all around Figment began to slide towards the front. It wasn’t really that noticeable at first. A few bags were a couple of feet from where they originally stood. Figment’s night vision didn’t really work the best when it came to distances, so nothing seemed off about this. The sound of them scraping against the floor was drowned out by the sound of jet engines.

The bags started to move at a greater speed. One bag that was stacked on top of another fell with a loud thud. Figment paused for a second. The gears in his mind began to process what was happening. He didn’t process it fast enough. A bag slid towards him at lighting speed. He flew up higher in the cargo hold, and almost hit his head on the ceiling. 

Below him the bags were moving about. If Figment didn’t know any better, he would have thought that they were alive. They slid on the ground moving like giant bugs who gently meander around a tree looking for their next meal.

Bugs were something that Figment didn’t really see much in the Imagination Institute, since Dr. Channing wanted everything to be as clean as possible. But ever since Figment had left the Imagination Institute, he saw bugs everywhere! There were bugs on the sidewalk, in the grass, and some where even on the water! Sometimes Figment would put a piece of food on the ground and watch the ants crawl on it. The fact that they marched in a little orderly line was fascinating.

Figment watched the bags crawl on the floor with the same intensity he watched the ants take pieces of food. It was a relaxing sight that made Figment forget about all the questions on his mind. The question of if Dr. Channing was worried about him running away. If Dr. Channing was making a big deal about his disappearance. If Dr. Channing ever even cared about Figment at all.

The moment of forgetting all his issues had passed by. Those few seconds were the most peaceful seconds Figment had experienced in a while. Honestly, Figment wishes he could forget about everything that he was leaving behind. It would make the whole running away thing far less painful. The image of the Imagination Institute looming behind him wouldn’t leave his mind. It was haunting. That was the building he was trapped in for his entire life. He should have known that leaving it would hurt, but he never expected it to hurt as much as it did.

All of that was pushed to the back of his mind. None of that mattered anymore. Figment was heading somewhere far away where no one would know him. A place where he could start a new life for himself. Sure, that didn’t work out in Cocoa, but he felt that London would be different. It was much bigger with way more people. Finding someone there would be like finding a microscopic needle in the universe’s largest haystack. Though with Figment’s appearance being that of a small purple dragon he would be incredibly noticeable. More noticeable than a surfer dude at a high society gala.

That was something Figment wouldn’t really be able to really change. Sure, he could instantly change his outfit, change his size, and turn invisible, but the one thing he couldn’t do was change his appearance. He didn’t really want to anyways, since he loved the way he looked. Changing anything about his appearance just felt wrong.

These thoughts of what he left behind, what he was heading to, and what he looks like were all very distracting. It in fact distracted himself from the chaos that was unfolding around him.

The bags slowly moving was only the start. As time went on, they gained speed, and began to tumble around the cargo hold. Eventually it was a full-on luggage demolition derby. A large red suitcase slammed into a smaller blue one. A green duffle bag smashed into a guitar case. The sound of wood and strings breaking were drowned out by the rest of the chaos. One suitcase crashed into the wall. Whatever was in it must have been really fragile because it sounded like a bull had actually made its way into a china store.

Figment was still very oblivious to what was going on. His mind had become a long and winding labyrinth, and he wasn’t especially talented at getting out of mazes. Getting out of his own mind would take something dramatic to happen like an explosion or an alien invasion or… bumping his head.

The plane seemingly jumped, and Figment who had been floating up above the suitcases smacked his head against the ceiling. That caused him to snap back to reality almost instantly. He rubbed his forehead. The past week he’s hit his head so many times that he might as well start wearing a helmet wherever he goes.

It became eerily silent. The jet engines whose loud roar propelled the plane through the sky had quieted down.

There was only one reason that the plane would quiet down like this. They had landed. Figment had finally arrived at London. His long journey across the Atlantic Ocean had finally come to end. No more sitting in the darkness waiting alone with his thoughts. He was finally going to be out!

The hatch opened bathing the cargo hold in the light of day. Figment heard voices just outside of the cargo hold. What they were talking about didn’t make it into the cargo hold. He realized that the hatch being open meant that they would be able to see him. And they could end his new life in London before it even began, and that just couldn’t happen.

Sneaking out would be much harder than sneaking in. He had gotten lucky with the fact that someone had distracted the baggage handlers the last time. This time he couldn’t rely on such luck. The odds of something like that happening right when he needed it were incredibly low. He looked around and tried to get a better view of the situation. Perhaps there was a vehicle or building blocking their view, but he had no such luck. If he went outside of the hatch he would be completely exposed. This would all be so much easier if he could just turn invisible.

Wait… He can turn invisible! Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done that earlier.

Figment turned himself invisible. He slipped out of the cargo hold. So far so good. Next, he had to make it past the baggage handlers. He zipped past them as fast as they could. None of them noticed anything suspicious aside from a light buzzing noise and a gust of wind, but this was an airport there were millions of objects that could make the same noises and a light gust of wind wasn’t all that noticeable

In just a few seconds he was in the clear. Not only that but he was in London! A new exciting place to explore with exciting new people to meet!

What Figment wanted to do the most was to go sightseeing. He had seen so much of London on TV and read so much about it. There were so many facts that he knew like how Big Ben is actually a bell and the clock tower is actually named Elizabeth Tower or how Cleopatra’s Needle is a time capsule or that there were over 170 museums in London. Figment liked that fact a lot since he loved museums! He hoped to see them all! And now that he lived in London he could if he wanted to!

Besides the typical landmarks that everyone wanted to see like Buckingham Palace and the London Eye, Figment wanted to just see what life in London was like. After all he had barely been outside of the Imagination Institute, and now he gets to see a different country on a different continent!

He found London very pretty with historic buildings that were centuries old mixed in with more modern architecture like skyscrapers. Figment didn’t know that London had skyscrapers at first. He thought that it was all just the old buildings.

The people in London were all so interesting to him. There were people with the same accent as Dr. Channing which startled him at first. He had always thought Dr. Channing had always just talked differently than everyone else for almost no reason. It just didn’t make sense that Dr. Channing would have this accent if he had never been here before. Maybe he just thought that talking like that made him seem smarter, but he never really boasted about his intelligence. Well for whatever reason there were lots of people who had the same accent as him.

London was another place that felt had that strange feeling that Figment kept getting. The feeling that this was all so familiar yet so strange. Maybe it was just that aside from a few things London wasn’t all that different from Florida. There were shops selling tourists various knick knacks, streets were filled with traffic, and there were lots of bridges. Main difference being that it was a lot colder in London than it was in Florida. Figment was happy that he was still in his cold weather outfit.

Figment floated around the city just enjoying the sights and sounds of London. No one really gave him a second glance, which was a bit strange after all he was a purple dragon, but maybe there were other dragons in London. That would be exciting. He had always wanted to meet another dragon. Being the only dragon in a world full of humans sucked at times.

There were so many things that Figment could do that humans couldn’t. Like no one else could fly. Whenever Figment flew it was fun, but it was always kind of lonely too. He wished that he could fly with someone, but humans were limited in the ways that they could fly, and birds didn’t provide much conversation. Airplanes were too dangerous to fly near, and helicopter were slowers, but their rotors would blow Figment away like a plastic bag in the wind. He needed something that was a medium of the two. Some kind of hot air balloon or maybe a blimp.

Even if he did meet other dragons there was no guarantee that they would be like him. After all he had been made via Dr. Channing’s imagination. There was a good chance that that may have made him a one of a kind deal. Which was good, wasn’t it? After all everyone wanted to be unique. It’s just no one told Figment that being unique would be so lonely.

It had been a few hours of Figment touring the city when he started feeling hungry. He realized that he hadn’t eaten in the last day, and he’s in a foreign country with no money. This is a bit of an issue. He needed some way to make money, but a two-month-old dragon wasn’t exactly able to just walk into the nearest office building and immediately get a job.

There had to be something he could do.

He was lost in thought when it hit him! Since, he couldn’t get a regular job he would just be street performer! It was perfect. Back at the Imagination Institute he would always dazzle guests with is silly jokes and pranks. The last open house was proof of that.

Figment summoned a hat. It was a simple purple top hat with an orange ribbon. He gently put it on the ground. This was going to be his tip jar. Now all he needed to do was grab everyone’s attention. That shouldn’t be too hard. Dr. Channing always said that Figment was the most distracting thing in the entire Imagination Institute. “Hello Everyone, I’m Figment!” He shouted.

This turned a few heads but not many. Figment summoned three balls and started to juggle them. A few people walking by gave him a few pence, but it really wasn’t substantial. 

He realized he was thinking much too small. What he needed was to think bigger than he had before. Something that would dazzle everyone who saw it. A grand show the likes of which had never been seen before!

There were a million ways he could go about making this new show. His most successful show was the one he did at the end of the open house. People loved that show and he heard them say that it was the best part of the whole open house. That is what he would base it on. Another component of the song that people loved was the song he sang, One Little Spark. Figment couldn’t have a show without One Little Spark.

With this plan set up all he needed to was to act on it. He quickly summoned a stage with the whole nine yards a sound stage lights and fancy personalized curtains. The curtains were a gorgeous display of colors with sparkles that glittered like stars in the night sky. This stage already caught the attention of several people passing by. All Figment needed to do was start the show.

He started to play the sound of an orchestra warming up. The classic sound that signaled to everyone around that a show was about to start. Figment lifted up the curtains to reveal the stage. He stared out at the four people who had stopped to see what this whole thing was about.

Figment had never really been one for stage fright. Entertaining people was his life after all. But this was different. Usually he was interacting with one person whether it was Dr. Channing or the other scientists at the Imagination Institute. But he had done the open house, and he did great. He could do this.

Start simple, he decided. A reintroduction would be nice, after all no one had heard him say it before. “Hello, everyone! I’m Figment!” He said into his microphone.

He was so nervous. It felt as though the whole world was watching him. What was something that people loved? Jokes and Figment was just the best at jokes. “What kind of music should you listen to when you’re fishing? … Catchy music”

Silence.

Okay, so maybe telling stupid jokes that he read on a popsicle stick wasn’t the best idea. He needed something that really stood out to people. He needed a funny story. Good thing was being as chaotic as he was, he had several funny stories. There had to be a good one that would get everyone to laugh. “Airports are so strict about security. They’re all like take off your shoes, remove your laptop, don’t bring shampoo bottles. It’s like why? What’s even the point of it all. Well my solution to it is simply just ride in the cargo hold. They won’t care what you bring there. Of course, they also don’t know you’re there either.”

That got quite a few laughs from the crowd. This boosted his confidence a bit. “I never understood people who cared so much about rules. My dad was one of those people. Everything had to be done by the book or else he would throw a fit. I once saw him get upset because someone had thrown trash in the recycling bin. It was something so small and simple. The cans weren’t labeled beyond a green and black coloring. Well, someone just had a piece of garbage they had to throw away. It was a simple Styrofoam cup. Well, my dad, the doc, was all the way across the lobby just waiting for some important guest or something and I guess he was having an off day or something because oh my goodness. When the man with the cup absentmindedly put it in the recycling. My dad went across the room with a speed that would make Sonic the Hedgehog jealous. A trail of wind was left behind him. A tornado of papers formed. He got all up in this poor guy’s face going off about how disrespectful it was to throw away a nonrecyclable in the recycling bin. He was mad about this. It was like he had been working on a new invention for years and someone just went and smashed it went a hammer. He just continued about how this could make the recycling plant throw away the whole thing and that this would slow things down at the recycling plant. At this point he was basically blaming this guy for global warming.”

More people had gathered around and where laughing even more at Figment’s jokes. “Most people don’t know that my dad and I’m related. He’s just this tall human who is a real stick in the mud when it comes to rules, and I’m this small dragon that breaks any rules that I see.” 

People were laughing even more at his jokes now and there were even more of them! To say that this show was going well was an understatement. Figment continued with his jokes as he drew more of a crowd. It was clear that people loved him, and he loved being loved. It was all so great. At one-point Figment felt that the stand up was getting dull, so he decided to change things up. He summoned a puppet of himself and started doing ventriloquism. That lead to him doing a musical bit. Overall, the show was spectacular.

When the show happened, hours had passed since he began. The sun had set, and the moon hung high in the sky. He had been so caught up in giving it his all in the performance that he had lost track of time. It was simply time to end it “Well, thank you everybody! You’ve all been great! Goodnight!” He shouted. The curtains closed. Behind it he could hear the applause of the audience.

He had almost forgotten why he had done the show. The tip hat still sat in front of the stage and most of the crowd had dispersed. Figment almost didn’t believe how much money was in the hat. It was almost overflowing. Someone had even tipped a 100-pound bill. This was definitely more than he needed.

Figment dissolved the stage since he didn’t need it anymore. He grabbed the money hat and started shoving however many bills would fit in his tiny jacket. To his surprise he managed to fit all of them in. But then again, he had always been able to store things that were typically way too large into containers that were way to small. He had heard some of the scientists refer to it as “hammerspace” which was a funny word since he never need to store hammers into his pockets.

He was almost about to up and leave when a stranger approached him. The stranger was a tall man with dark hair and was wearing an expensive suit. His eyes seemed to glow, but that might have been a trick of the light. “Mr. Figment... I saw your show and you were quite good.” The stranger didn’t have the accent that most people around here had, and his speech was slow as though he was carefully considering every single word he said.

“Thanks!” Figment said. “I really tried my best”

“And… It showed. Why… most of the audience were beside themselves with laughter…” The stranger said. “You see Mr. Figment… I work with some people who are very interesting in finding new… talent, and it seems you… are just the kind of person we are looking for.”

“I am?” Figment asked.

“Yes,” The stranger said. “You are. If you join… then you’ll never have to worry about food or shelter. All those things will be provided for you.”

“That does seem like a good deal.” Figment said. “But, Doc said I shouldn’t trust strangers. I don’t know your name.”

The stranger paused for a moment as though he was thinking about something he had long since forgotten. “It’s Gary… Mann.”

“Okay Gary. I accept your offer” Figment said.

“Thank you. And please call me Mr. Mann.” Mr Mann said.

“Okie dokie Mr. Mann” Figment said.

“Now come with me. We have much to discuss.” Mr. Mann began to walk down the sidewalk and Figment followed him like a puppy following an older dog. Things were finally beginning to look up for him after everything he’s been through. It was all going to work out just fine just like Figment had hoped. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to hopefully be posted next Friday (the one after this one)  
> Might not tho since school is starting back up  
> As always check pinkrose787.tumblr.com/tagged/tagged/Where-He-Doesn%27t-Belong for updates  
> Edit: Sorry Chapter 8 is taking so long. A lot has been going on in my life these past few months and I've been unable to write as much as I'd like. I'm hoping to have the chapter up in early January


End file.
